"Montemarano’s novel is tight and well-crafted—a fine place, small and transparent, like a paperweight, self-contained and compact, not a word wasted...This is a fine and important book."


—Chicago Tribune

 

"Even if you’ve never been to the Italian-American section of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, Nicholas Montemarano’s impressive debut novel, A Fine Place, will make you feel as if you know the place and its people very well. Think of the simmering sense of hostility between blacks and Italians in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, and you’ll get the essence of what A Fine Place is all about."


—St. Louis Post-Dispatch (named one of the best books of 2002)

 

"Without ever raising his voice, Montemarano gives us the continuum of violence and tenderness that is real life. Deft and true in every detail, A Fine Place reminds us that the territory of the heart is infinite. With this skillful, eminently humane, and politically astute novel, Nicholas Montemarano emerges as an American stylist capable of redeeming our darkest dreams.”


—Jayne Anne Phillips

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“This powerful, unflinching first novel, based on real events, is recommended for all public and academic libraries.”


—Library Journal

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"Nicholas Montemarano’s A Fine Place is one of the most remarkable and compelling first novels I have read in years. Change that: it is one of the most remarkable novels period."


—Jay Neugeboren

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"A Fine Place is a story that has so very much to tell us about ourselves and our country. I hope this novel and its author become a visible part of our country’s cultural scene.”


—Robert Coles

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"Montemarano’s writing is sure and clear and direct. He describes the banalities of everyday life with clinical precision."

—San Francisco Chronicle

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